Shrewsbury champions of CMass-WMass

Friday

Jun 13, 2014 at 9:54 AMJun 13, 2014 at 9:54 AM

By Kevin J. Stonekstone2206@gmail.com

Few programs get to enjoy the thrill of a district or state title run, but the Shrewsbury boys lacrosse team is finally at the top of that mountain.With a 9-8 double-over time win over Westfield in the Division 2 Central/Western Mass title game last week, the Colonials locked up a date with Medfield in the state semifinals on June 10.For head coach Nate Skermont, seeing his team actually gel into the true definition of the word has been his biggest thrill."The past two weeks have been such a joy to watch as a coach because every guy on the team has been a key part of the success," he explained. "Each guy is only worried about one thing and that's winning. The guys that don't get as many minutes are helping us by giving everything they have in practice to make us better and then the guys getting the game minutes are stepping up and they are doing everything they can to keep the run going. Each guy genuinely cares about their teammates and what makes them so happy is that they have another day together as a team. They don't want it to end and neither do the coaches."The old adage is that defense and goaltending win championships, and for the Colonials that has rung true through out their postseason run. Shrewsbury has held its last three opponents under 10 goals each game.Skermont was quick to point out some specific instances where defense has saved the season for Shrewsbury."When you look at the games themselves, we have always been a program known for our defense and that has continued again this season," said Skermont."It starts between the pipes with senior All-American goalie Chris Gorman. He is our vocal leader and a guy that when we need a big stop always helps deliver it. We had trouble with our clears in the Westfield game because they were doing a great job locking off our midfielders and Chris took it upon himself to start bringing the ball up himself and over midfield if he could. He ended up with two assists in the district final game so you could say he got it done defensively and offensively that game. The starting defense consisting of Sean Travers (Jr.), Tim Hally (Jr.) and Griffin Couture (Sr.) are all big strong defensemen that have been tested all year by quality attack units. They have been able to shut teams down and anytime we've needed a big stop."Skermont points to a brief skid during the season that turned things around and sent Shrewsbury on its way to an amazing run."From the start of the year up through winning the district title, what has really been key to our growth is learning from our mistakes and really buckling down and saying that it won't happen again," noted Skermont. "We had a tough stretch where we lost three games in a row with two of them being overtime games and the other being a one-goal game. The three games were all in a span of three consecutive days and even though we lost all three I feel that our mental toughness grew from that experience."High school sports are often more mental than physical. The ability might be there, but the belief and confidence in one another needs to be built up. The Colonials have figured that out and are now one of the more dangerous teams in the state."When we broke down the film of our losses we realized that we were playing against two teams in those games: a quality opponent and ourselves," acknowledged Skermont"We weren't doing the little things well. It showed up on film and that gave us a boost seeing that we were in every game we lost, but that we needed to just limit our mistakes and everything would be fine. We had great practices the last few weeks of the season that were focused, allowing us to get right back on track and then wins started coming with that hard work. Confidence goes a long ways in high school sports and when we started playing with confidence I knew we were going to be dangerous." -------Shrewsbury’s Julia Ford won the state individual golf title by placing first in a field of 31 competitors at the Glen Ellen Country Club in Millis.Ford shot a 75 to finish two strokes ahead of Sophie Morrill of Hanover.

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